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SPEECH 

OF 



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MAJOR GEN'L JOHN A. RAWLINS, 



CHIEF OF STAFF U. S. A. 



General Grant's Yiews in Harmony with Congress. 



AUTHENTIC EXPOSITION OF HIS PRINCIPLES. 



PUBLISHED BY THE UNION REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE, V/ASHINGTON. D. C. 



Major General John A. Rawlins is known to the country as the able Chief of Staff 
of the Army of the United States, and the accomplished and contideutial Staff Officer of 
General U. S. Grant himself. General Rawlins has been in the closest relations with 
liis great Chief, the Republican Presidential nominee, ever since the war began, and 
knows the opinions and policy of General Grant better probably than any other person. 
Hence the significance whish attaches to this speech, made at Galena, Illinois, June 21st, 
1867, on tlie occasion of General Rawlins visiting that city, his former residence. It 
was undoubtedly prepared with General Grant's knowledge and submitted to him 
before delivery : 



Fellow- Citizens : When a boy, bring- 
ing the produce of my father's farm — of 
his forests and of his quarries — to your 
market, I always met with favor and kind- 
ness. When grown to be a man, as a 
student of law I had your words of en- 
couragement. When a practitioner of 
law, 1 had your support and patronage; 
and when the roU-ca!l of the nation 
sounded to arms, witfi your fathers, your 
sons, husbands, and brothers, I went out 
from among you, with your blessings and 
your prayers, to aid in maintaining the 
supremacy of the Constitution and the 
Union ; and after four years' participa- 
tion in the bloodiest war ever waged among 
men, and two years' cognizance of the resto- 
ration of civil authority and constitutional 
government from its wreck and ruin, I 
come back to you and meet wit ha welcome, 
that, were it not for the friendship you 
have always evinced toward me, I should 
attribute wholy to my long, intimate as- 
sociation with that most sui f.essful of the 
world's military chieftains. General U. S. 
Grant, and the great cause in which he 



achieved success. For this welcome, friends 
of my boyhood, friends of my manhood, 
friends of my whole life, accept my sincere 
thanks. 

Many of those who went from among 
you have not returned, and many who have 
are battle-scarred and maimed. This glooms 
yoar homes, and over your reception hangs 
like a pall. Where are those uareturned 
braves? Their bodies sleep in death on 
every battle-field and in every patriot ceme- 
tery in this broad land; but their souls 
awake in Christ — have found peace with 
the God of Washington and of Lincoln. 

In no spirit of partisanship, buc from the 
eminence of our nationality, let us review 
the cause of the war; the acts of the Gov- 
ernment to prevent it, and, while it was 
racing, to induce its abandonment by those 
who controlled it; its effects upon the Con- 
stitution and the people of the United 
States, and upon the governments of the 
States that made it, and the acts of the 
Government to restore, to their proper 
efficiency and relation, everything effected 
by it. They are the questions with, which 



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Mve are dealing to-day, nnd it is the part of 
■wisdom to consider well the orobable effect 
of this dealing on the future of our country 
and of mankind. 

The Constitution adopted by onr fathers, 
although the word slave or master does not 
appear in it, recognized their existence in 
the States, and provided for the protection 
of the master in his right to his slave in 
the apportionment of representatives and 
direct taxes, and in providing for the de- 
livery up of persons held to service or labor 
in one State, who might escape into another, 
on a claim of the party entitled to such ser- 
vice or labor. In accordance with public 
opinion at the time, the Constitution was 
so forraf'd that any one or all of the Stages 
might abolish slavery without any other 
effect than the increase of the representa- 
tives and taxes of the State or States abol- 
ishing it. It was thought by a majority of 
the distinguished statesmen who formed 
the Constitution that slavery would grad- 
ually and in time disappear from all the 
States. 3Iassachusetfs had abolished it, 
and it had been forever prohibited in the 
Northwestern Territory. Seven others of 
the States abolished it, but the increased 
value of slave labor put a stop to its 
abolition in other States, and there legis- 
lation tended to strengthen the title of 
the master and degrade the slave and free 
persons of his race. All sources of educa- 
tion were denied to them, and the right of 
suffrage, which free persons of color en- 
joyed in some of them, was taken away, 
and they were prohibited from coming iato 
and settling in these States. In the free 
States, too, public opinion In support of 
compromises in the interestof slavery, that 
Southern threats of secession and disunion 
had forced them into, underwent a change, 
and in many of them disabilities were im- 
posed U[)on free persons of color nearly, if 
not quite, as severe as in the slave States. 
The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
which, lo get Missouri into the Union as a 
slave State, forever prohibited slavery in 
the territory nortn of 3(i deg. 39 miu. north 
latitude, aroused the people of the i'rei^ 
States upon the subject of slavery in thp 
Territories, and made a decided change in 
public opinion. But the decision of the 
Supreme Court in the Dred Scolt case — 
that those of the enslaved African race, 
thougli free men, were not, nor could not 
be, citizens of any State, in the sense in 
which th:it word was used in the Consiitu- 
tion, and could not be parties to suits in 
any Federal court, not even to those in- 
volving their rights, under the laws, to 
freedom; that neither the enslaved African 
race nor their descendants, whether free or 
not, were included or intended to be in the 
Declaration of Independence, and formed 
no part of the people who framed and 
adopted the Constitution — returned public 
opinioiv in the free States to the point of 



its departure from the opinion of our fathers. 

The correctness of this decision, which 
involved the right of slavery in the Ter- 
ritories, as well as nesrro citizenship, was 
the main issue in the Presidential election 
of 18G0. 

Against its correctness and justice, and 
in favor of Congressional prohibiiion of 
slavery in the Territories, was recorded a 
majority of the popular vote, in all the free 
States, of 293,767 in favor of Mr. Lincoln, 
and the electoral vote of every one of them, 
except four from New Jersey. From the 
slave States there were recorded acrninst it, 
and in favor of Mr. Lincoln, 2G,4oO. Mr. 
Lincoln had 180 of the electoral vote, to 
123 for all others. The result was held by 
the slave States as destructive of their rights 
in the Union, and especially endangering 
their title to their slaves, notwithstanding 
the fact that in both branches of Congress 
they had a majority in their favor; that the 
decisions of the Supreme Court were in 
their interests, and that Mr. Lincoln, on 
the popular vote, was 930,170 in the minor- 
ity. With this apprehended danger as a 
pretext, eleven of the States withdrew their 
representatives from Congress, and, in hos- 
tility to the Union, organized a gov- 
ernment which they styled the Con- 
federate States of America, in which 
slavery was to be forever perpetuated. 
Alexander H. Stephens, the Vice Presi- 
dent of this rebel government, in his expo- 
sition of its constitution, and constrasting 
it with the Constitution of the United 
States, declared that the prevailing ideas 
entertained by Jefferson and most of the 
leading statesmen at the time of the 
formation of the old Constituiion, were 
that the enslavement of the African was 
in violation of the laws of nations; that it 
was wrong in principle, sociably, morally, 
and politically; that it was an evil they 
knew not well how to deal with, but the 
general opinion of the men of that day 
was that somehow or other, in the order 
of Providence, the insiitution would be 
evanescent and pass away; tliat this idea, 
though not incorporated in the Consiitu- 
tion, was the i,>ravaUiug idea at the time; 
that those ideas, however, were funda- 
mentally wrong. They rested upon the 
assumption of the equality of races. This 
was an error. It was a sandy foundation, 
and the idea cf a government built upon 
it! When the storm came and the wind 
blew, it fell. "But our new government," 
he said, "is founded upon exactly the op- 
posite idea. Its foundations are laid; its 
cornerstone lests upon the great truth that 
the negro is not equal to the white man; 
that slavery, subordination to the superior 
race, is his natural and normal conUition. 
This, our new government, is the lirst in 
the history of tiie world based upon this 
great pliysicul, philosophical, and moral 
truth." 



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^^ Upon tbe issues so clearly stated by Mr. 
\d Stephens war was made Ujion the United 
"v Stales, and for more tlian lour years the 
^ , lawful authority of the Union was resisted. 
Everything was done that could bo done to 
induce tlie States and the people in rebel- 
lion to lay down their arms and return to 
their allegiance. The Territories of Colo- 
rado, Nevada, and Dakota, comprising 
nearly all our remaining territory', were or- 
ganized without any prohihilion of slavery. 
President Lincoln in his inaugural address, 
March 4, 18G1, denied tlie purpose or lawful 
right of the Government to interfere with 
slavery where it existed, and declared that 
lie would enforce the provisions of the 
Constitution for the surrender of fugitive 
slaves ; that the Government would not 
assail the South, and that they could have 
no conflict without themselves being tlie 
aggressors. And Congress resolved, by 
an almost unanimous vote, on July 23, 
1861, that the war was not waged on our 
part in any spirit of oppression, or for the 
purpose of overthrowing or interfering 
with the rights or established institutions 
of the Si;ates in rebellion, but to defend and 
maintain the supremacy of the Constitu- 
tion, and to preserve the Union with all 
the dignity and equality of the several 
States unimpaired, and that as so<m as 
these objects were accomplished the war 
ought to cease. But all these acts, declara- 
tions, and resolutions had no etl\3ct upon 
lliose in rebellion. They strengthened, 
however, our hold upon the border slave- 
holding States, and made many in the free 
States, who seemed to hesitate active sup- 
porters of the war measures of the Govern- 
ment, and answered the arguments of 
confederate agents to the crowned heads 
of Europe for recognition, that we were 
making war upon them with a view to their 
subjugation and the destruction of their 
individual rights. No nation ever before 
BO literally obeyed the scriptural injunc- 
tion, "that ye resist not evil, but whosoever 
shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to 
him the other also." It was not until the 
seceding States opened their guns upon 
Fort Sumter that the majesty and manhood 
of the nation was aroused to resistance — a 
resistance the magnitude and grandeur of 
which was only equaled by the good re- 
Bulting from it to the human race. 

The only legislation in 1861 affecting 
slavery, after the war began, was to de- 
clare the forfeiture of the master's claim to 
his slave it he permitted him to be employed 
in any military or naval service against the 
Government. April 16, 1863, slavery was 
abolished in the District of Columbia. July 
13, 1863, Congress passed a law declaring, 
among otlier things, that all the slaves of 
those engaged in rebellion thereafter, or 
were in any way giving aid and comfort 
therein, coming within the lines of the army 
and the control of the Government in the 



manner therein described, should be deemed 
captives of war and forevcu* free; and 
authorizing the employment and enlistment 
of negroes m the army of the United States, 
ml authorizing the ['resident at any time 
Ihereafier by jtroclamaion to extend 
pardons and amnesty to persons who might 
ha-T participated in the rebellion, with such 
exceptions, at such limes, and on such con- 
ditions as lie might deem expedient for the 
public wellare. September 23, 1863, the 
President issued hia preliminary ])roclama- 
tion of emancip It ion, in which lie proclaimed 
that on the 1st d;iy of January thereafter 
all persons held as slaves within any State, 
or part of a State, to be then designated, 
the people whereof should then be in re- 
bellion, should be then thenceforward and 
forever iree; tliat the fact that any State, 
or the people thereof, should on that day be 
in good faith represented in Congress, 
should, in the absence of strong corrotiora- 
tiug testimony, be deemed conclusive evi- 
dence that such State, and the people 
thereof, were not then in rebellion against 
the United States, January 1, 1863, Presi- 
dent Lincoln issued the emancipation 
proclamation as promised. The organi- 
zation of negro troops was begun, and 
carried on with great success. Dur- 
ing tue war we had in the army over 
300,000 of them, who, by their i^ravery and 
good fighting, proved the wisdom of the 
Government. They hurt the enemy by 
leaving his plantations, as well as by the 
deadly aim of tlieir muskets. April 24, 
1863, Mr. Htanton, Secretaiy of War, pub- 
lished to the country what the United 
States held to be the laws of war between 
them and a belligerent, which admitted of 
slavery, which was that if any person held 
in bondage by that belligerent was cap- 
tured, or came as a fugitive under tho pro- 
tection of the military forces of the United 
States, he was immediately entitled t j his 
freedom, and that a person so made free by 
the law of war was under the shield of the 
law of nations, and the former owner or 
State could have by the law of post liminy 
no belligerent lien or claim of service. 
December 8, 1863, President Lincoln is- 
sued a proclamation to the States and peo- 
ple in rebellion, extending amnesty and 
pardon to all, except certain classes therein 
specified, who would take an oath to sup- 
port the Constitution and Union and the 
acts of Congress and the proclamations of 
the President relating to slaves during the 
rebellion, so long and so far as not repealed, 
modified, or made void by the Supreme 
Court, and promising the guarantee of the 
United States to any republican govern- 
ment in 110 wii^e contravening said oath 
that one-tenth or more of the voters therein 
mentioned as qualified to vote might es- 
tablish. This was with the view of form 
ing a nucleus around which the loyal pco 
pie could gather for protection. Teiiues. 



see organized under tbis proclamation, and 
abolished slavery. Arkansas and Louisi- 
ana commenced but did not complete their 
organization to the satisfaction of the Gov- 
ernment. 

On the 18th day of July, 18C4, President 
Liu coin gave no' ice to the people in rebel- 
lion that any proposition embracing the 
restoration of peace, the integrity of the 
■whole Uuion, and the abandonment of 
slavery, and coming by and with an au- 
thority that could control the armies then 
at war against the United States, would be 
received and considered by the Executive 
of the Government of the United States, 
and would he met by liberal terms on sub- 
stantial collateral points. The ^30uth still 
persisted in the maintenance of the rebel 
government, and the perpetuation of 
slavery. Sherman bad not yet taken At- 
lanta, nor made his famous march to the 
sea. Early had not yet been defeated by 
Sheridan, nor the Shenandoah Valley so 
stripped of supplies that, in the words of 
Gram's order, "Crows flying over it 
would, for the season, have to carry their 
rations." Thomas had not broken to 
pieces Hood's army; nor had Grant de- 
stroyed and captured the army of Lee. 
Enough hundreds of thousands of men had 
not yet fallen victims to the fury of the re- 
bellion, or been sacrificed upon the altar of 
freedom. The rebel government still 
maintained its pover and authority, and 
sent forth its edicts of war, bitter war, from 
the gates of Kichmond. It still persisted 
not only in not giving freedom to the 
slaves, hut in not recognizing them as 
prisoners of war, when captured in our 
service, in our uniform, and under our flag. 
It coQtiuued in its ranks tens of thousand 
of orisouers who had been captured and 
paroled by us, without giving the equiva- 
lents required by the cartel agreed upon 
for the exchange of prisoners. To redress 
this gross injustice and violation of the 
laws of war, ad exchanges were suspended, 
and continued suspended until the cry of 
our prisoners, '' We starve, we starve," 
cime to us from Belle Isle, Andersonville, 
and Salisbury. February 3, 186.">, found 
Sherman moving from Savanuah north- 
ward through the Carolinas ; the forts at 
the entrance of Mobile and Fort Fisher, 
commanding the entrance to Wilmington, 
in our possession ; and troops moving irom 
Thomas' army, both east ami souih, by 
rail and river, to complete the capture of 
these important cities. The iragments of 
Hoi>d's army moving to joiu the force 
uudtr Hardee, that had fled from Savan- 
nah to iuterpose between Sherman and 
Kichmoud ; and rebel commissioners, 
iiea-ded by their Vice-President, Alex. H. 
Stephen^, in conference with President 
Linculu and Mr. Seward, Secretary of 
Slate, in Hampton Euads, on the subject 
yf peace. Mr. Lincoln still insisted upon 



the integrity of the whole Union, and the 
abandonment of slavery, and promised 
great liberality upon all collateral issues. 
But the representatives of the rebellion de- 
clined to accede to these terms. In March 
the rebel Congress authorized the enlist- 
ment of negro slaves in the Confederate 
service as soldiers. This was the first in- 
road of the rebel government upon the 
ideas on which it was founded. It was a 
concession that there was enough of the 
man left in the slave for a soldier, and en- 
titled liim to be treated, when captured, as 
a prisoner of war. It went far, too, to- 
ward removing the prejudice against him. 

The war for the perpetuation of slavery, 
however, continued — the earth's thirst was 
still slaked by freemen's blood until the 
glittering bayonets of Grant's army flashed 
the sunlight in the face of Lee's, as they 
interposed between him and all hope of 
escape at Appamattox Court-House, and 
Johnston surrendered to Sherman, and 
Dick Taylor and Kirby Smith to General 
Canliy, and all the conditions of the laws 
of Congress and of war, as announced by 
the Government, entitling the slave to free- 
dom, were complied with, and the great 
emancipation proclamation of President 
Lincoln obtained throughout the land. 
The rock upon which the confederate gov- 
ernment was founded w^as calcined, and 
the base fabric it supported sunk from the 
sight of men. 

The South was one vast camp of paroled 
prisoners, and the four millions of slaves 
constituted as many millions of their free 
population, and the military authority of 
ths United States alone afl'orded it protec- 
tion. If the African or enslaved race had 
no Moses to lead them from the land of 
bondage, through the Red sea of deliver- 
ance, they had masters whose hearts were 
hardened by the Almighty, through the 
agency of tne Liberty party, to inaugurate 
a civil war that made the very land in which 
they dwelt a sea of blood, which, when it 
arose sulliciently high to slacken their 
bonds so that they slipped from their limbs, 
Liberty's God bade the earth drink up, and 
lett them free. 

The restoration of the States that had 
been in rebellion to their proper relations 
with the Government required the actioc 
of both the President and Congress. Presi- 
dt-nt Johnson, who had succeeded to the 
Presidency upon the death of the lamented 
and immortal Lincoln, entered at once 
upon this important duty, and, had the 
Southern Stales filled their offices with 
men of the most approved loyalty among 
them, recognized not only the settlement 
of the question of secession, but also the 
settlement of the citizenship of the emanci- 
pated race among them, and their right to 
the benefit of all ihe laws for the protection 
of life, liberty, and property equally with 
white inea, and extended to such as could 



read or write or paid a certain amount of 
taxes the right of suffrage, as sugirested to 
them l)y the President, and chosen repre- 
sentatives to CoDgresswhose loyalty during 
the war was above question, with what 
they did do in the ratification of the consli- 
tutional amendment abolisliing slavery 
and the repudiation of the rebel debt, it 
might have been concurred in by Congress 
and approved by the people. IBut as they 
did not do this, Congress through a joint 
committee of fifteen, known as the Com- 
mittee on Reconstruction, instituted an in- 
quiry into the character of their laws and 
governments, and their manner of admin- 
.'stering justice, pending which their repre- 
sentatives were refused admission into 
Congress. At this time none of the prom- 
inent citizens in these States, or officers of 
the army and civil departments of the 
Government, thought it practical to with- 
draw the military force, for both whites 
and blacks mutually required its protection, 
and it was so reported ofiicially to the 
Government. 

On the 12th of January, 1866, official in- 
formation from the South made it necessary, 
to protect officers, soldiers, and others, who 
had been connected with the army, and 
persons charged with offences done against 
the rebel lorces during the rebellion, and 
the occupants and custodians of aban- 
doned lands and property, to issue an order 
from the headquarters of the army direct- 
ing, where it had not already been done, 
orders to be issued by local commanders 
prohibiting the prosecution of these classes 
for acts done under proper orders, or against 
the rebellion, in the State and municipal 
courts, and also to protect colored persons 
from prosecutions for offences for which 
white persons were not punished in the 
6ame manner and degree. 

April 2 President Johnson issued his 
proclamation declaring the end ("except 
in Texas") of the insurrection which had 
existed in the seceded Slates, and that it 
was thenceforward to be so regarded. On 
the 1st ot May, in an order relating to 
military courts aud commissions in these 
States, the President directed that there- 
after whenever offences committed by civil- 
ians were to be tried whei'e civil tribunals 
were in existence which could try them 
these cases were not authorized to be, and 
would not be, brought before military 
courts, but would be committed to the 
proper civil authorities. The result of the 
Congressional inquiry into the character 
of the laws and governments of the se- 
ceding Slates, aud the manner of admin- 
istering justice there, was to satisfy Con- 
gress that the governments in those States 
were illegal or anti republican in form, and 
that the emancipated race was not afforded 
the equal protection of the laws with the 
governing class; that many of the disabili- 
ties that attached to them when slaves had 



not been removed, and that in fact in soma 
districts they had no protection at all, 
owing to the prejudice of the gov- 
erning class against them, and the ne- 
glect of the civil authorities to arrest 
and punish those who committed the 
crime of murder or other offences against 
them. Whereupon Congress, by virtue of 
the constitutional obligation guaranteeing 
to each State within the Union a republi- 
can form of government, and the provision 
that no person should l)e deprived of life, 
liberty, or property without due process of 
law, and i's duty to settle the questions 
growing out of the war, passed the civil 
rights bill, and proposed an amendment to 
the Constitution known as "article four- 
teen." And as the rights of States in this 
Union to representation in Congress is 
not greater than their right to republican 
forms of government, and in fact depends 
upon the existence of such forms of gov- 
ernment. Congress determined to withhold 
fronf the States lately in rebellion the en- 
joyment of the right of representation until 
they returned to their republican charac- 
ter, or ratified the proposed amendment to 
the Constitution, which, it was believed, 
would in the end result in their return to 
such character of government without 
further action or interposition of the Gen- 
eral Government. This amendment was 
at once ratified by Tennessee, and her re- 
presentatives, all of whom were loyal dur- 
ing the war, were admitted to their seats 
in Congress, and she has since extended 
the elective franchise to her colored citi- 
zens the same as her white ones. The civil 
rights bill met with great opposition in the 
South. The provision therein that citizens 
of every race and color, without regard to 
any previous condition, should have the 
same right in every State and Territory in 
the United States to the rights therein 
enumerated, among which was the fuU 
and equal benefit of all laws and proceed- 
ings for the security of person and pro- 
perty, as is enjoyed by white citizens, and 
to be subject to like punishment with the 
white man and none other, instead of se- 
curing to colored persons the protection 
intended, seemed to increase their 
danger, in exciting and intensifying the 
prejudice of certain classes against them, 
and also against the ofiicers of the army 
and of the Freedmen's Bureau, and those 
who were Unionists during the war. They 
were frequently murdered, and no attempts 
were made to arrest their murderers, al- 
though they remained quietly in the neigh- 
borhood. This failure to enforce the laws 
was sometimes from fe ir on the part of the 
better class of the people that their own 
lives and property would be endangered 
thers'oy, but more frequently from indif- 
ference on the subject. And when arrested 
and tried, they were generally acquitted, 
or the punishment inflicted was but trifling. 



6 



To remedy this condition of things, an 
Drder was issued from the headquarters of 
tlie army, June Gih, 180G, directing the 
military commanders there to arrest all 
persons who had heen, or might thereafter 
be, charged with the commission of crime, 
when the civil authorities failed, neglected, 
or were unable to arrest and bring ihem to 
trial, and to hold them until a proper judi- 
cial tribunal might be willing to try them. 
August 20, 1866, President Johnson issued 
his proclamation, in which, after repiiing 
among other things that adequate provi- 
sions had been made by military orders to 
enforce the execution of the acts of Con- 
gressj (o aid the civil authorities, and se- 
cure obedience to the Constitution and 
laws, if a resort to military force for such i 
purpose should at any time become neces- j 
sary, he declared the insurrection that had j 
existed in Texas at an end, and was thence- j 
forth to be so regarded as the other btates, | 
and that peace, order, tranquihty, and 
civil authority then existed throughout the 
whole of the United States. 

The Constitution provides that represen- 
tation and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
among the several States which may be in- 
cluded within this Union according to their 
respective numbers, which shall be deter- 
mined by adding to the whole number of 
free persons, including those bound to ser- 
vice for a term of years, and excluding In- 
dians not taxed, three-fifths of all other 
persons. The "all other persons" were 
slaves, and numbered, at the breaking out 
of the war, nearly four miUions. They 
were regarded in tbe mixed character of 
person and property. Each one was 
three-filths a person and five-fifths a chat- 
tel. He was a peculiar kind of property, 
and hard to hold, yet subject to taxation as 
any other kind of property. He was there- 
fore invested with three-fifths of the hu- 
man character, which was represented in 
the person of his owner. This enabled his 
owner to securely hold and enjoy him iu 
the full character of a chattel, two-fifths of 
which was exempted from taxation. This 
was a compromise between those in the 
interests of slavery and those who desired 
its extinction. The provision for the re- 
turn of fugitives from service to their mas- 
ters was incidental to this, and applied as 
well to those bound to service for a term of 
years. The result of the war was the free- 
dom of all the slaves, who, with the free 
persons of color, constituted more than 
two- fifths of the inhabitants in the eleven 
States in rebellion, and to render surplus- 
age the words, '-three-fifths of all other 
persons" in the Constitution, and settled 
the question of their right to citizenship 
adversely to the decision of the Supreme 
Court, as well as the right of secession for- 
ever. These were questions directly in- 
volved in the contest. These were the 
auxiliaries to slavery for which the seced- 



ing States made war, and with it slavery 
ended. 

To hold otherwise, what would be its ef- 
fect upon the States and citizens and their 
rights expressly derived from the Constitu- 
tion? We wculd have four millions of peo- 
ple, each one a free agent to come when ho 
pleases, and go when he pleases, at least in 
the State where he resides, Iree to enter 
into contracts with States and citizens, 
cDntracts that may become subjects of liti- 
gation. Yet he could not be made a party 
to any suit in any court provided for by 
the Constitution, nor could any suit in a 
State court in which is brought in question 
tlie validity of any statute of the United 
States be carried to any of these courts. 
He is not a citizen of any foreign Power. 
JSTo citizen or State can enforce any rights 
they may have against him in any of these 
courts, no matter wliat the magnitude of 
their interests. Tbis perhaps was a small 
matter when there was only a few thousands 
of these people, but when you increase 
them to millions it becomes a grave and 
serious one to the States and white citizens, 
but still more so to the colored race. 
Should not as niauy rights be accorded to 
liberty, under the Constitution, as were 
accorded to slavery? When the slave 
escaped into another State the master 
could follow him into that State, no mat- 
ter what its laws might be, and carry him 
back to servitude. Ouglit not the freeman 
now, that was the slave then, to have the 
right of a citizen of the United States to 
go to any State, and remain there, no mat- 
er what its laws? 

The next question following that of citi- 
zenship is, have the se.;eding States any 
equitable constitutional right to represent- 
ation for the persons made free by the war, 
without granting to them the right of suf- 
frage ? Had slavery been abolished by an 
amendment of the Constitution while their 
relations with the Government were un- 
disturbed — or had they themselves peace- 
ably, and in obedience to the laws and 
Constitution, abolished it, and made proper- 
provision for the protection of the emanci- 
pated, and their rights of life, liberty, and 
p.ropert>' — their equitable constitutional 
right to this representation would not-have 
been questioned. The greatest considera- 
tion the pari_i to that compromise in the 
Const ilutiou that desired the extinction of 
slavery had, after the securing of the Union, 
was tne hope that the increased representa- 
tion it would give would induce tne States 
to emancipate their slaves. Bui the eman- 
cipation contemplated was peaceable, r»nd 
in accordance with law, and not the re- 
sult of violence and wrong. It may be 
said that these States have ratified the con- 
stitutional amendment abolishing slavery 
peaceably and in conformity to law. To 
this we answer their ratification of the 
amendment was after their slaves had beeu 



freed. It was only a confirmation of that 
freedom which they were powerless to pre- 
vent, and advanced them one step nearer 
the restoration of their proper relations 
■with the Government; and this advanced 
f-tep in that direction is the only con- 
fcidcration they are entitled to for their 
ratification of it. The consideration to 
the Government was that it put the 
adoption of the amendment beyond all 
possible question; but aa the destruction of 
this compromise, in the freedom of the 
slaves, was the result of their own wrong, 
they not only can have no equitable claim 
under the Constitution to any benefits 
flowing from it, however great they may 
be, but should forfeit to the persons of these 
freedmen the right to the three-fifths rep- 
resentation they had for them when they 
were slaves; and while they withhold from 
them the right of suffrage they not only are 
not entitled to representation for them, but 
they render questionable their republican 
lorm of government. These persons are 
no longer subjects to be bought and sold; 
their owners no longer pay the taxes as- 
sessed upon three fifths of their value to the 
General Government, which entitled them 
to represent their three-fifihs human char- 
acter. But they are now free, and pay 
taxes for themselves — all the taxes that are 
assessed, too, upon the full value of their 
property. And above and beyond all this, 
they furnished two hundred thousand sol- 
diers, who freely shed their blood side by 
side with the two million heroes of our own 
race in the maintenance of the Union and 
the Constitution. If ever it could have 
been plausibly argued that they were not of 
the people who framed the Government, 
it can never be said that they were not of 
those who saved it. In view of these facts, 
and the further fact that the representation 
the States had for them was used as a means 
to secure and perpetuate their enslavement, 
ignorance, and degradation, now that they 
are free, in the name of justice and all that 
is honorable among men, are they not en- 
titled to representation to preserve that 
freedom and to subordinate the soil they 
cultivated in slavery and ignorance to taxa- 
tion for the culture and enlightenment of 
their children and the elevation of their 
race ? If their ancestors had been freed in 
the war for independence, and fought side 
by side with our revolutionary sires in de- 
nial of the right of taxation without repre- 
sentation, what would our fathers have 
done ? Why, sirs, tbey never would have 
questioned their right to representation, 
fchall we, their sons, then, after having 
fought the great battle in support of the 
idea of man's equality, upon which our 
Government is founded, which they fought, 
over again, refuse to avail ourselves of the 
opportunity we now have to invest the de- 
scendants of the enslaved race so far as is 
within our power with all the rights they 



would have had if their ancestors had all 
been free at the formation of the Constitu- 
tion? When the compromise of human 
rights made by our fathers to secure the 
Union has been swept away by the 
very party in whose interest it was made, 
in its mad attempt to destroy the Union, 
will we any longer withhold from 
those whose iiherties and human character 
were involved in that compromise the in- 
alienable rights of man? No; we will re- 
store to them these rights, as our fathers 
would were they living. James Madison, 
one of the authors of the Constitution and 
its ablest expounder, in discussing the sub- 
ject of representation said : "It is only un- 
der the pretext that the laws have trans- 
formed the negroes into subjects of property 
that a place is disputed them in the compu- 
tation of numbers, and it is admitted if the 
laws were to restore the rights which have 
been taken away the negroes could no 
longer be refused an equal share of repre- 
sentation with other inhabitants." Their 
right to representation when free was un- 
questioned. It was admitted by all the 
leading statesmen of that day. It was a 
right to be enjoyed by themselves, and not 
by the other inhabitants for them, and at 
the time of the adoption of the Constitution 
in at least five of the States they were en- 
titled to and did enjoy the right of suffrage, 
and were represented in the convention 
that framed tliat instrument in the persons 
of every delegate from the States of New 
Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, 
New Jersey, and North Carolina, and were 
of the people who, for themselves and their 
posterity, ordained it to be the Constitu- 
tion of the United States of America. By 
the first section of the constitutional amend- 
ment now pending, citizenship of the United 
States and of the States is clearly defined, 
and not left to the discretion of the several 
States, or decisions of courts. It provides 
that all persons born or naturalized in the 
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction 
thereof, are citizens of the United Slates and 
of the State wherein they reside, and that no 
State shall make or enforce any laws which 
shall abridge the privileges or immunities of 
citizens of the United States, nor deprive any 
person of life or property without due pro- 
cess of law, nor deny to any person within 
its jurisdiction the equal protectio.u of the 
laws. The second section, intended as a 
settlement of the question of representa- 
tion, apportions representation among the 
several States according to their respective 
numbers, counting the whole number of 
persons in each State, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, but when the right to 
vote is denied to any ot the male inhabi- 
tants, citizens of the United States, and over 
twenty-one years of age, except for crime, 
the basis of representation shall be reduced 
in the proportion which the number of such 
male citizens shall bear to the whole num- 



ber of male citizens, twenty oae years of 
age, iu tlie State. This secures the equal 
political power of voters iu the Govern- 
ment. In deference of the acknowledged 
right of the State to regulate the question, 
suffrage was not expressly conferred upon 
the emancipated race, but, constituting so 
large a body of the people of many of the 
States, and affecting to such an extent as 
they do the representation, there was but 
little doubt that the States would extend to 
them that right. The Constitution defines 
treason against the United States to consist 
only in levying war against them, or in 
adhering to their enemies, or giving them 
aid and comfort, and empowers Congress 
to declare the punishment of treason, but 
provides that no attainder of treason shall 
work corruption of blood or forfeiture, ex 
cept during the life of the person so at- 
tamted. Congress declared the punishment 
of treason to be death or imprisonment for 
not less than five years, and by a tine of not 
less than ten thousand dollars, the freedom 
of slaves and inability to hold office under 
the United States. Under the Constitu- 
tion any one charged with treasjn has a 
right to a speedy and publiff trial by 
animpartial jury of the State and district 
wherein the crime may have been commit- 
ted, which district shall have been pre- 
viously ascertained and fixed by law, and 
to be informed of the nature and cause of 
the accusation by presentment or indict- 
ment of a grand jury. They cannot be 
tried in any other place or manner. The 
war embracing as it did the great mass of 
the people in the States and districts where 
it was mostly carried on, and the preva- 
lence of the belief of the people there in 
the lawful right of secession, together with 
the conspicuousness of the principal lead- 
ers, and the notoriousness of their partici- 
pation in it, in effect put a bar to all punish- 
ment for the crime of treason, under the 
Constitution. All the provisions of the 
Constitution for its punishment were ren- 
dered inoperative, as it were, there was 
no such thing as jurors, such as the Con- 
stitution contemplates, in these States and 
districts, to sit in cases of treason. All had 
made up their minds on the question of 
treason and secession, and those believing 
in the right of secession would not, of 
course, fiud one guilty of treason w io had 
only attempted secession; and the notori- 
ousness of the participation of the princi- 
pal leaders, the ones that ought to be pun- 
ished, was such that few, if any, of those 
who believed levying war against their 
Government was treason, when examined 
as jurors could siy they had not made up 
their minds as to the guilt or inuocence of 
the accused. Besides the great majority of 
ihcm were themselves guilty, and one 
would scarcely expect them to render ver- 
dicts of guilty that m'ght he pointed to as 
precedents against their own lives, liberty, 
property, and eligibility to ollice. 



The result of the war upon the Constitu- 
tion, then, in so far as it relates to treason 
and its mode of punishment, was to render 
the infliction of punishment so uncertain 
as to destroy its usefulness as a preventive 
of treason almost entirely, as well as to 
render the Government in a measure pow- 
erless to inflict any of the pains and penal- 
ties prescribed for it upon the leaders of the 
rebellion; for unless conviction for the 
offence could be had no punishment what- 
ever could be imposed. No one could be 
put to death for treason, no matter how 
much the safety of society demanded it; no 
one could be imprisoned or fioed for it; no 
confiscations of property or forfeitures of 
real estate lor the lifetime of the person 
convicted, the constitutional limitation to 
such forfeitures, could be hid, nor could 
any one guilty of treason be held in- 
capable to hold office under the United 
States. These convictions could only be 
asked for from the communities most 
deeply stained with treason, and their re- 
fusal was almost certain. 

THE CONSTITUTIONAL AilENDMENT. 

Thus, at the end of the most gigantic 
civil war that ever attempted the destruc- 
tion of a nation, the Government found 
itself powerless to punish those who in- 
augurated and directed it iu its fell pur- 
pose. The third section of the consiitu- 
tioual amendment, now pending, in a 
measure gets over the obstacles the rebellion 
has placed in the way of punishing treason, 
and makes its punishment certain to the 
extent it goes. It provides that no person 
shall be a Senator or Representative in 
Congress, or elector of President and Vice 
President, or hold any office, civil or mili- 
tary, under the United States, or any State, 
who, having previously taken an oath as a 
member of Congress, or as an officer 
of the United States, or as a member 
of any State Legislature, or as an ex- 
ecutive or judicial oflEicer of any State, 
to support the Constitution of the United 
States, shall have engaged in insurrection 
or rebellion against the same, or given aid 
or comfort to the enemies thereof; but Con- 
gress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each 
House, remove such disability. This is not 
only magnanimous to the people in rebel- 
lion, but it is a wise precaution against trea- 
son ; it renders none ineligible to office except 
those who had, previous to their rebellion, 
held office under the United States or 
States, and taken the oath to support the 
Constitution of the United States, which, 
by the Constitution, they were expressly 
required to take. To this exception, it 
seems to me, no reasonable objection can 
be had. To those included iu it was once 
intrusted the power of the Governuieut, and 
had they been true to their offices and tiieir 
oaths, there could have been no rebellion; 
aod had it been attempted, the Govern- 



y 



ment could have given that protection to 
the people in the rebellious States they 
were entitled to; but the unfaithfulness of 
these officers rendered the Governmtnt 
powerless to prevent the rebellion, or to 
protect those of its people who would have 
been loyal could they have had protection. 
Those rendered ineligible to hold office are 
not disfranchised, but all the rights apper- 
taining to citizens are theirs to enjoy, save 
that of holding office. Every other citizen 
of the United Stales who has the requisite 
qualifications, no matter how conspicuous 
he was in the rebellion, no matter how hard 
he fought against the Government, is eli- 
gible to any office, civil or military, State 
or Federal, even to the Presidency. If 
this is not magnanimity, what is ? 

This amendment empowers Congress, by 
a two-thirds vote, at any time to remove 
the disability it imposes. Let the persons 
to whom the disability attaches pursue a 
wise course in support of the Government, 
and they may look forward to a time, and 
that, too, at no distant day, when their dis- 
ability will be removed, and all the rights 
of citizens restored to them. 

THE PUBLIC DEBT. 

Another result of the rebellion upon the 
people of the United States was the entail- 
ing upon them of a public debt of two 
thousand five hundred millions of dollars, 
and obligating the payment of large sums, 
for pensions and bounties, for services in 
suppressing it. The rebel government and 
States, in aid of the rebf^llion, hatl an out- 
standing indebtedness of about two thou- 
sand millions of dollars, and obfigations 
for pensions, too, in aid of it, and the claim 
of payment for emancipated slaves was un- 
settled. 

Who could say that there might not be 
danger at some time of the repudiation of 
our public debt and of our obligations for 
pensions and bounties, or assumption of 
the rebel debt and its obligations, and pay- 
ments be made for emancipated slaves? It 
is hard to tell what a people who had lost 
so much by the war as those of the rebel 
lion lost might not be stimulated to do to 
avoid the payment of a debt and obliga- 
tions directly incurred in producing that 
loss, or what two thousand millions of 
money, aided by the millions claimed for 
emancipated slaves, might not effect in the 
Legislatures of the secedsng States, or even 
in the Congress of the United States. 

THE REBEL DEBT AND PAYMENT FOli EMAN- 
CIPATED SLAVES. 

The purposes of the fourt'h section of the 
constitutional amendment is the settlement 
of these questions. It provides that the 
validi'y of the public debt of the United 
States authorieed by law, including debts 
incurred for the payment of pensions and 
bounties for services rendered in sup- 



pressing insurrection or rebellion, shall 
never be questioned; but neither the United 
States nor any State shall assume or pay 
any debt or obligation incurred in aid of 
insurrection or rebellion against the United 
States, or any claim for the loss or emanci- 
pation of any s'ave, but all such debts, ob- 
ligations, and claims shall be held illegal 
and void. 

It may be said that this amendment is 
unnecessary, that no one would think of 
repudiating our national debt, or our obli- 
gations for pensions and bounties; that if 
they did, the amendment would be no pre- 
ventive; they would only have to elect a 
Congress that would refuse the necessary 
appropriations to meet them; and that it 
was idle to think of either the United States 
or any of the States assumiug the rebel 
obligations or the payment of claims for 
emancipated slaves. To this it may be 
replied that it will be difficult to find any 
one to go before the people and advocate 
the repudiation of an obligation expressly 
declared in the Constitution, when, hut for 
its being so declared, they might be found. 
And as to the rebel obligations and the 
payment for emancipated slaves, it not 
only settles them forever, but will make 
men cautious about giving credit to such 
rebellions in future. 

Of the necessity of these amendments to 
settle the questions that had been involved 
in the war and resulting from it there can 
be no doubt, yet all the seceding States, 
excepting Tennessee, rejected them as 
an infringement upon their constitutional 
rights, 

REPUBLICAN STATE GOA^EBNMENTS IN THE 
SOUTH. 

Was Congress correct in its decision that 
the States lately in rebelMon have illegal or 
anti republican forms of government ? Of 
the want of protection of the persons and 
property of freedman there is no question. 
James Madison, in discussing the con- 
formity of our Constitution to republican 
principles, in answer to the question, 
"What, then, are the distinctive characters 
of the republican form?" which he put, 
said : "If we resort for a criterion to the 
different principles upon which different 
forms of government are established, we 
may define a republic to be, or at least may 
bestow that name on, a government which 
derives all its powers directly or indirectly 
from the people, and is administered by 
persona holding their offices during plea- 
sure, for a limited period, or during good 
behavior. It is essential to such a govern- 
ment that it be derived from the great body 
of the society, not from an inconsiderable 
portion, or a favored class of it; otherwise 
a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising 
their oppressions, by a delegation of their 
powers, might aspire to the rank of repub- 
licans, and claim for their government the 



10 



honorable title of republic." This we hold 
to be the true definition of a republican 
form of government in the sense in which 
that term is used in the Constitution. Do 
the forms of government in these States 
come up to this definition ? It may be 
replied that these States had republican 
forms of government under tbe Constitu- 
tion and Uaion before tbe rebellion, or the 
willidrawal of their representation from 
Congress, and that their rights under the 
Constitution and Union were not affected 
by these acts; tliat they are still in the 
"Union, and never were out. To the propo- 
sition that they are still in the Union and 
never Avere out we subscribe, and shall 
continue to subscribe, while we remember 
the dead heroes whose eyes, before they 
were glazed in death, mirrored all the stars 
upon our flag, and who in their hearts be- 
lieved, iiefore they had ceased to beat, that 
they represented freedom. Union, and the 
indestructibility of States. 

But tbe republican character of their 
State govtrnmeuts was affected by these 
acts in so far as they resulted in admitting 
a class of freemen into, and constituting 
them a part of, the society or people of 
these States, so long as the right to partici- 
pate in the affairs of State is withheld 
from them. It is only to States in the 
Uuioa that the Constitution guarantees 
"republican forms of government. In 
discussing this provision of the Constitu- 
tion, James Madison, in answer to the 
questions that it was not needed, and that 
it might become a pretext for alterations in 
State governments without the concurrence 
of the Slates themselves, said : "If the in- 
terposition of the General Government is 
not needed, the provision for such an event 
will be a harmless superfluity in the Con- 
stitution; but who knows what experiments 
may be produced by the caprice of par- 
ticular Slates, by the ambition of enter- 
prising leaders, or by the intrigues and 
influence of foreign Powers. To the sec- 
ond question it may be answered that if 
the General Government should interpose 
by virtue of this constitutional authority, 
it will be of course bound to pursue the 
authority. But the authority extends no 
further than to a guarantee of a repubhcan 
form of government, which supposes a 
preexisting government in the form which 
is to be guaranteed. As long, therefore, as 
the existing forms are continued I)y the 
States they are guaranteed hy the Federal 
Constitution. VVheuever the Slates may 
choose to substitute other repubhcan forms, 
they have a right to do so, and to claim the 
Federal guarantee for the latter ; the only 
restriction imposed on them is that they 
shall not exchange republican for anti-re- 
publican coustitui ions, a restriction which 
it is presumed will hardly be considered as 
a grievance." 

Before these States attempted secession, 



and while their relations with the Govern- 
ment were undisturbed, there were about 
one hundred thousand free persons who, 
on account of their race and danger to 
slavery, were denied any voice in their 
government. And there were of the same 
race over three and one-half millions who 
were, in the language of James Madison, 
"by the compromising expedient of the 
Constitution, regarded as inhabitants, but 
debased by servitude below the equal level 
of free inhabitants, which regarded the 
slave as divested of two-fifths of the man." 
Under the Constitution they were not re- 
garded as a part of the society of these 
States entitled to a voice in the Govern- 
ment ; and while this compromise con- 
tinued, denial of it to them did not atfect 
their republican forms. But these States, 
in their own caprice and the ambition of 
enterprising leaders, relying, too, upon the 
aid of foreign powers, withdrew their rep- 
resentation from Congress, organized a 
government of their own, declared hy them- 
selves to be in direct opposition to the ideas 
upon which ours was founded, and, by the 
most bloody war that ever deluged a land 
with blood, maintained it for more than 
four years, forcing us, in order to overthrow 
it and save tbe Union, for whi^h the com- 
promise of the slaves' manhood was made, 
to free the slaves, and restore to them their 
manhood. At the close of this bloody 
struggle, instead of one hundred thousand 
free persons to whom is denied a voice in 
their Government, we find nearly four 
millions. 

WHEN" SOUTHERN STATE GOVERNMENTS 
CEASED TO BE REPUBLICAN. 

The compromise of the Constitution that 
saved to these States republican forms of 
government, and exempted them from the 
Madisouian definition of one, was swept 
away in their mad attempt at secession. And 
their governments, derived as they are iu 
some of them Irom a minority of the people, 
an inconsiderable portion of the society, 
instead of from the great body of it, from 
which it is essential to the republican char- 
acter they should be derived, and in all the 
others from a favored class of society which 
is destructive of the republican character, 
and who do not aff'ord to the other class the 
proper protection of persons and property, 
guaranteed to them by the Constitution; 
when that class, too, from whom they are 
not derived, was the only one iu many of 
them who fought to maintain the Union 
and the rights of States unimpaired, fall 
far below the Madisouian defiuition of a 
republican form of government in the sense 
of that term as used in the Constitution. 
In view of these facts, to hold otherwise 
would be not only degrading of the char- 
acter of republics, and violative of the laws 
of nations under whose shield persons 
made free by war are, but an outrage made 



11 



upon the rights of those who helped to 
fight for the Union and the rights of the 
States under it; and we "would deserve 
and receive the universal rebuke and repro- 
bation of mankind." 

OBLIGATION OF THE GENEHAt, GOVERN- 
MENT TO GUARANTEE REPUBLICAN 
STATE GOVERNMENTS. 

The Constitution guarantees to each 
S'ate in this Union a republican form of 
government, and also provides that no per- 
son within this Union shall be deprived of 
life, liberty, and property without due pro- 
cess of law. That is to say, if any State 
in this Union, in its own wrong, ceases to 
be republican in form, the Government 
will restore it to a republican form; or if a 
State fails or refuses to protect persons 
within its jurisdiction in their lives and 
property, the Government will give lliat 
protection. The manner in which, and 
tbe means to be used in executing these 
constitutional obligations are for the Presi- 
dent and Congress to decide, and if they 
deem it necessary they may make use of 
tbe army. In fact, ever since those States 
withdrew their representation from Con- 
gress, and organized a government in hos- 
tility to tbe republican idea upon which 
the Union was founded, it has been deemed 
necessary by the President and Congress 
to use the army — first, to break down and 
destroy their governments in hostility to 
the Union, and secondly, to enable them 
to revive and put in motion the State gov- 
ernments they had when they attempted 
secession, and adapt them to the new con 
dition of society. But as they, in their 
adaptation of these governments to the 
new state of society, failed to come up to 
the requirements of the republican form, 
and refused their assent to the amend- 
ments of the Constitution where its provis- 
ions had been affected or impaired by tlie 
war, and failed to properly enforce the 
civil rights bill for the protection of life 
and property, it was continued there. 

THE MILITARY RECONSTRUCTION BILLS. 

The manner and means decided to be ne- 
cessary for the execution of these constitu- 
tional obligations, and the restoration of 
these States to their proper relations with 
the Government, are set out in what is 
known as the military reconstruction bills. 
They are divided into five military districts, 
subjected to the military auihority as pre- 
scribed in the bills, and each district is com- 
manded by an oflicer of the army, whose 
duty is to protect all persons in their rights 
of persons and property, to pr^^serve order, 
and cause criminals and disturbers of the 
peace to be punished; and to that end he is 
authorized to allow the local civil tribunals 
to try otfonders, or when in his judgment it 
is necessary he may organize military com- 
missions to try them, but no sentence of 



death can be carried into effect without the 
approval of the President. 

To enable tlie people of each of these 
States to form a constitution in conformity 
with the Constitution of the United States 
in all respects, and extending the elective 
franchise to their male citizens twenty -one 
years old and upward, of whatever race, 
color, or condition, who have been one 
year resident of the State previous to any 
election— except such as may have been 
disfranchised for participation in the rebel- 
lion or for felony at common law — and to 
enable them to participate in the present 
governments in those States until the new 
constitutions shall go into effect, the right 
of suffrage is extended to all male citizens, 
irrespective of color or previous condition, 
who can take an oath that they have been, 
for one year previous to the election or 
registration, residents of the State, and 
tw-enty-one years old, and have not been dis- 
franchised for participation in any rebellion 
or civil war against the United States, and 
have never been members of any State 
Legislature nor held any executive or judi- 
ci il office in any State and afferward en- 
gaged in insurrection or rebellion against 
the United States, or given aid and com- 
fort to the enemies thereof, and have never 
taken an oath as member of Congress or 
officer of the United Slates, or as member 
of any State Legislature, or executive or 
judicial office of any State to support tha 
Constitution ot the United States, and 
afterward engaged in insurrection and re- 
bellion against the United States, or given 
aid and comfort to the enemies thereof; 
and to all who cannot take this oath the 
exercise of the elective franchise is denied, 
but the moment the new constitutions go 
into effect the denial of its exercise* 
ceases. Because of their exercise of thft 
offices they once held against the Govern- 
ment and their unfaithfulness to their oathir 
to support the Constitution, the right tc 
exercise the elective franchise and to hole 
office is withheld from them until the wit 
of the people of the States shall be madi , 
known through their constitutions respec- 
tively. When these States respectively 
shall have adopted their new constitutions 
and organized their governments under 
them, and the Legislatures of their new 
governments shall have ratified the consti- 
tutional amendment now pending, if Con- 
gress approves of their new government as 
republican in form, their representatives 
will be admitted to their seats in Congress. 
These acts and the disabilities they im- 
pose are temporary, and are to end upon 
the accomplishment of their purpose, 
namely, the restoration to these States of 
republican forms of government, secure 
the protection of life and property, and 
settle the questions of the war affecting the 
Constitution and people of the United 
Stales. 



12 



THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE 

IS the on jy pure protection to person and 
prol)ert3^ It gives one a voice in govern- 
ment, secures to liim respect, and insures 
liim tlie equal benefit of tlie laws. And 
when these acts have accomplished their 
purpose, there will be no male citizen in all 
these States, of the age of twenty one years 
or upwards, except such as are disfran- 
chised tor rebellion, or felony at common 
law, who is not entitled to this right of 
suflrage, to this voice in their government. 
The only disability attaching to any such 
citizens will be that imposed by the third 
section of the constitutional amendment. 

THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS CONSTITU- 
TIONAL. 

That the objects and purposes of the acts 
are constitutional, there can be no reason- 
able question, nor do I think the manner 
and means adopted by the Government to 
secure these objects unconstitutional. They 
are in the nature of a writ or execution is- 
sued by a court upon a judgment or decree 
that it has arrived at after a full hearing of 
the facts and examination of the law in the 
case, in the hands of a sheriff to execute. 
If it is for the possession of houses and 
lands, he goes to the occupant, and if he 
gives up the possession to the person en- 
titled to it peaceably and in obedience to 
the writ, that is the end of it; but if he re- 
fuses to give up the possession, in virtue of 
the authority of his writ of execution, he 
calls in the posse comitatus, or power of his 
county, and puts him out by force, and re- 
stores the possession to the rightful person, 
and that is the end of the writ and the au- 
thority of the officer under it. 

So the Government having, with a full 
knowledge of the facts, and their constitu- 
tional obligations, determined the neces- 
sity of restoring to these States republican 
forms of government, and of securing to 
all the people thereof protection in their 
persons and property, and of settling the 
questions affecting the Constitution and 
people resulting from the war, issued its 
order, the purpose of which is fully set out 
therein, and placed it in the hands of officers 
of the army of the rank therein named, with 
authority to exercise such military power 
as was necessary to the execution of the 
purpose of their order, and the moment 
this purpose is executed their authority 
ceases. That the use of the military au- 
thority contained in these laws was neces- 
sary to enable the Government to perform 
its constitutional obligations, there is no 
doubt. In all its efforts through the civil 
authorities it had, we might say, wholly 
tailed. And under the provision of the 
Constitution authorizing Congress to make 
all laws necessary and proper for carrying 
out the powers vested by the Constitution 
in the Government, the President and Con- 
gress are the judges of the necessity, and 



having determined it, the validity of their 
acts, being purely political, cannot be ques- 
tioned. The decision of the Supreme Court 
n a case involving the constitutionality of 
ihe charter of the United States Bank is ap- 
tlicable to this. In that case the charter 
p as sustained on the ground that the bank 
I was a necessary fiscal agent of the Govern- 
, ment, the court holding unanimously that, 
{ "If the end be legitimate, and witliiu the 
! scope of tihe Constitution, all the means 
I which are appropriate, which are plainly 
i adapted to that end, and which are not 
I prohibited, may constitutionally lie em- 
ployed to carry it into effect; that if a cer- 
I tain means to carry into effect any of the 
I powers especially given by the Constitution 
1 to the Government of the Union be an ap- 
propriate measure, not prohibited by the 
Constitution, the degree of its necessity is 
a question not of judicial cognizance." 

THE EMANCIPATION AMENDMENT. 

It may be asked what becomes of the 
constitutional amendment abolishing sla- 
very which the Southern States have ratified, 
if they have illegal or anti-republican forms 
of government. The answer is they are 
governments de facto, nevertheless, and 
acts of theirs, especially those directly tend- 
I ing to the settlement of the questions in- 
i volved in the war, or to render unques- 
tionable the acts of the Government neces- 
I sitated by the war, if accepted and ratified 
by the Government, as their action in this 
I case has been, are binding and valid to all 
I intents and purposes. Besides, it is not 
I admitted that the amendment was not valid 
I without their concurrence. To hold that 
I it was not would be to admit a weakness in 
I our Constitution inconsistent with the na- 
tional life it is intended to perpetuate. 

WERE THE SECEDED STATES NECESSARY TO 
ITS RATIFICATION? 

At the time of the attempted secession 
of the Southern States there were in this 
Union thirty-four States, twenty-three of 
which constituted the required two-thirds 
to apply for a convention to propose amend- 
ments to the Constitution. Had the eleven 
who withdrew from Congress and made 
war upon the Government succeeded in 
getting one more to do so, which they 
came near doing, one of the modes pro- 
vided for the amendment of the Constitu- 
tion would have been gone to us if we 
held to the construction that those do who 
insist that an amendment to the Constitu- 
tion to be valid must be ratified by three- 
fourths of all the States, no matter what 
their relations or attitude to the Govern- 
ment may be. And that is not all ; it would 
render questionable the consti.tutiouality of 
an amendment proposed by two-ihirds of a 
Congress in which less than two-thirds of 
the States were represented, and might 
I even make questionable the validity of an 



13 



amendment proposed by two thirds of a 
Congress iu which only two- more than 
two-thirds of the States were represented. 
By this rule of construction, had one 
more of the States gone into rebellion and 
no new ones been admitted, the result of 
the election for President and Vice Presi- 
dent in 18G4 might have been such as to 
have ended the Government under the 
Constitution altogether. Had General Fre- 
mont continued in the canvass and divided 
the electoral vote between the three candi- 
dates for President and Vice President, re- 
spectively, so that no one had the required 
majority to an election, as was the case in 
1834, there would not have been a quorum 
of two- thirds of all the States in the House 
of Representatives, or of two-thirds of the 
whole number of Senators in the Senate, 
for the election of either President or Vice 
President, as provided for in such cases. 
And as Congress is only empowered to 
provide by law for the case of removal, 
death, resignation, A* inability, both of the 
President and Vice President, and not for 
the case of a failure to elect a President or 
Vice President, on the 4th day of March, 
186.J, the office of President and Vice Presi- 
dent of the United States would have ex- 
pired, with no authority in the Constitution 
for tlaeir revival, and our Government 
under the Constitution would have been at 
an end. Even with the States that were 
represented, had the election resulted as 
supposed, by this rule of construction the 
eleven States at war ar^ainst the Govern- 
ment and their Senatorswould have counted 
against the candidate having the highest 
number in either House, getting a majority 
of all the States, or of the whole number 
of Senators. The Constitution should never 
be construed so as to defeat itself, or the 
rights of the people and States under it. 

UKIVERSAL SUFFRAGE. 

It is to be hoped that all the States that 
have not conferred the right of suffrage on 
the emancipated race may deem it the part 
of wisdom, as well as justice, to do so at 
the earliest practical period, and not by 
delay in doing so compel an amend- 
ment of the Constitution for that purpose — 
an amendment which, with the aid of the 
eleven Southern States, in which it is ex- 
tended to them, would be sure to be 
adopted. It may be thought by some that 
these States could not be relied on for such 
aid, because of the hope that may exist 
among their white citizens of securing at 
some time the disfranchisement of the col- 
ored citizens, as was once done in North 
Carolina and Tennessee ; but if there is 
any such hope it will be forever dissipated 
by a clause that I have no doubt will be 
inserted in all of their constitutions, pro- 
viding tbat no amendment to them shall 
ever be made abridging the elective fran- 
chise as therein declared. 



NO DANGER PROJI EXTENSTON OF THE 
ELECTIVE FllAKCIIISE. 

There need be no apprehension of dan- 
ger to our institutions from the extens-ion 
of the elective franchise to the African 
race on account of their great number and 
ignorance. The love of liberty and of the 
forms of free government are too n)uc,h a 
part of the American character ever t) be 
affected in any such way. The men of the 
South who made the determiued und des- 
perate fight for the enslavement of the 
African because of his value as property, 
nevertheless love and appreciate liberty 
for themselves. And the African, ele- 
vated from the degradation of slavery, 
rendered respectable by his voice in gov- 
ernment, admitteil to all sources of intelli- 
gence, inspired by the same love of free- 
dom, speaking the same language and 
worshipping the same God, will rise 
rapidly in the scale of knowledge and the 
cloud of ignorance that envelopes him will 
as rapidly pass away, and he will not fail 
"to help to keep the jewel of liberty in the 
family of freedom." And that peace so 
long desired, but which can ucvtir be had 
in a government like ours while a political 
right accorded to one is denied to another, 
will prevail through all the land. 

NO DANGER FROM THE ARMY. 

Nor need fears be entertained of danger 
to the people' 8 liberties from the army. The 
army is of the people, and has ever been 
with the Government, and no one has been, 
or ever will be, mad enough in their pur- 
pose to destroy the liberties of the country 
to rely upon its assistance. On the con- 
trary, the first thing they would do would 
be to get rid of it. What did the leaders 
in the rebellion just closed do ? With the 
Secretary of War, (Floyd,) the adjutant 
general of the army, (Cooper,) the quar- 
termaster general of the army, (Joe John- 
ston,) and the chief of staff to the lieutenant 
general commanding the army, (Lee) — allia 
their interest, did they concentrate the army 
in the neighborhood of Piichmond or Har- 
per's Ferry, that they might at the oppor- 
tune moment seize the capital and Govern- 
ment of the United States? Far from it. 
They placed it beyond the people's reach, 
virtually abolished it, and sent our ships of 
war into the furthest seas. They knew too 
well, when the hour of trial came, on which 
side the army and navy would be Ibnnd ; 
that "Yankee Doodle," and not "Dixie," 
would be the tune they would march and 
fight to. 

At the close of the retellion among no 
part of the people of the country was there 
a greater desire to be found than in the 
army for the immediate restoration of the 
people in the rebellious States to their rights 
of civil government, and the withdrawal, 
at the earliest practicable moment, of mili- 
tary authority from among them. And to- 



14 



day, -whatever may be said to the contrary, 
there are no meu in all the United States 
more anxious to have the people of the 
Soutli comply with the requirements of the 
Government, that they may be relieved of 
the exercise of the authority that has bepn 
imposed upon them, than are the five mili- 
tary commanders there. And whatever 
they may do, you may rest assured, is in- 
tended by them to facilitate the complete 
restoration of civil authority, and to end 
their military power. 

NO DANGEK FROM THE SUPREME COURT. 

K'or need the people have fears of danger 
to their liberties from the Supreme Court 
of the United States. Its recent decisions 
on the military commission and test-oath 
cases, that seemed to create such uneasy 
apprehensions in the public mind, were in 
the interest of individual lil)erty and the 
vindication of men's rights under the Con- 
stitution, and not the imposing of disabili- 
ties on them. They do not seek to deny 
the validity of military tribunals in States 
and districts where all civil tribunals were 
suspended or destroyed by actual war, or 
where, resultant from that war, the civil tri- 
bunals had ceased to protect s^ociety by the 
punishment of offenders against it. They 
are far different from the decision in the 
Dred Scott case, which, after denying a 
man's right to a hearing in court on the 
question of his freedom and remanding 
him to bondage, sought to doom the very 
earth to constitutional slavery. 

Government, in the exercise of its war 
powders, may find it necessary sometimes 
lo dciil arbiirarily with individual rights, 
or in the tread of mighty armies they may 
be iranii)led under loot, but they arc never 
lost sight of by an independent and honest 
judiciary. Much has been said of the power 
of one of the judges of the Supreme Court, 
in cases where the court is equally divided, 
to declare unconstitutional and void a 
statute or act of the United Stites which 
has miit the approval of both the other de- 
pariujents of the Goveruuent, or been 
passed by the requisite majority in both 
houses 01 Congress, who, equally with the 
Supceme Court, are judges of tiic consiitu- 
tionalify of iheir own acts. By the Con 
stituiiou the people vested the cstablish- 
menl of the Supreme Court in Congress, 
and extended its jurisdiction to all cases in 
law and equity arising under the Constitu- 
tion, the Liws of the United States, and 
treaties made, or which might be made, 
under the authority of the Uuitjd States. 

Suits are usually brought to obtain deci- 
sions, and the simjiler and less dillicult the 
mode of arriving at them is the better it is 
lor the suitors. And Congress and the 
President in its establishment, perhaps, 
had more in view the iutcreslvS of suitors 
than deereabing iho chauces of their own 
acts being declared huU and void by re- 



quiring the concurrence of a greater num- 
ber of the judges in any opinion having 
that effect. Otherwise they would have 
gone to the Constitution and ascertained 
what rule the people, whose agents they 
were, adopted relative to the other depart- 
ments of Government, or affecting the 
Constitution, and applied the rule they 
there found to all decisions of the court in- 
validating any law or act of the United 
States. 

If the executive department of Govern- 
ment disapproves of any law or resolution 
of Congress requiring its approval, two- 
thirds of both houses are required to con- 
cur in its passage or adoption. To convict 
the President in case of impeachment, two- 
thirds of all the Senators present must con- 
cur. To expel a member from either 
branch of Congress, two-thirds of the 
branch to which he belongs must concur. 
When the choice of President and Vice 
President devolves upon Congress, it re- 
quires a quorum of two-thirds of the sev- 
eral States to be represented in the House 
of Representatives to enable them to choose 
the President, and a quorum of two-thirds 
of the whole number of Senators to enable 
the Senate to choose the Vice President. 
To propose amendments to the Constitu- 
tion, two-thirds of both branches of Con- 
gress must concur, or the Legislatures, or 
conventions of twothirds of all the States 
must join in proposing them. To enter 
into any treaty with loreign uai inns, re- 
quires the concurrence with the Presitient 
of two thirds of the Senate. To require 
the concurrence of all the judges would 
enable any one of them to prevent any de- 
cisions, and destrcj' the greatest constitu- 
tional purpose of the court altogether. 

FREEDOM OF SPEECH, 

At the commencement of the rebellion, 
in fifteen States of this Union, except in 
one or two places, that provision of the 
Constitution that Congress shall never 
make any law abridging freedom of speech 
or of the press was, when they related to 
the subject of slaver}^ entiri-ly nubitied. 
No one could speak or print anything 
against the impolicy or evil of it, or in favor 
O! its abolition, and in the other Stales and 
Territories it was seriously impaired by 
the same subject— the only one that ever 
did seriously affect it. How that it is gone, 
and the people whose rights it involved are 
having those rights restored to them, may 
we not reasonably hope that freedum of 
speech aad of the jiress may obtain to their 
pristine vigor iu all the United States of 
America, never again to be impaired. 
When the measures of the Government for 
the restoration of the seceding States to 
their proper relations in the Union are con- 
summated, the supremacy of the Constitu- 
tion will be maintained, and the Union 
preserved with all the dignity, equality, 
and rights of the several States unimpaired. 



15 



There will be representatives in Congress 
from every cue, and the State governments 
of each will alone afford protection to per- 
sons and property, and regulate in their 
own way their domestic affairs. 

"manhood suffrage" elsewhere. 

And in our example "of a government of 
the people and by the people" will be 
echoed back to Ireland through the ex- 
tension of the elective franchise to all 
classes ot Englishmen, rich and poor alike; 
her shout of "manhood suffrage" in her 
recent but vain attempt to throw off the 
yoke of the oppressor, and the land of 
Burke, who fought in America for that 
high boon to all, through it will be free. 

The right of searching merchant ships 
and vessels of neutrals in time of war, in 
denial of which we made the war of 1813, 
which ended in peace without its settle- 
ment, has been settled in the ons just 
closed, by Great Britain's t iking substan- 
tially the same ground that we then held, 
and still hold, in her denial of it in the 
Trent case. The reason for this change 
of ground was her impatience to see perish 
from the earth the only Government whose 
example, if a success, endangered the titles 
of English peers and princes to their right 
to govern, without its having been, in each 
individual case, confirmed by the people 
through the ballot-box. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

The practicability and effectiveness too of 
the Monroe doctrine, which was regarded 
by foreign powers as American electioneer- 
ing buncombe, has been firmly established 
by the result of the war, in Louis Napo- 
leon's withdrawal, at our behests, of his 
troops, and abandonment of his idea of em- 
pire on this continent, although it left the 
one on whose brow his hand had placed 
an Imperial crown to be captured, and not- 
withstanding our intercession, shot by the 
people whose rights he had usurped. 

OUR EUROPEAN NEIGHBORS. 

Russia, in a spirit, of amity, has relin- 
quished to us all her va;t possessions in 
America, and England is quiutly preparing 
for separation from the Canadas. Separa- 
tion is what their Confederation means. 
England, too, manifests a disposition to 
settle the claims for damages done our 
merchantmen by privateers fitted out in 
her ports in aid of the rebellion; but should 
she fail in properly adjusting them, it may 
become the duty of the people's represen- 
tatives to issue Iheii" writ in the form of a 
declaration of war for the seizure of her 
possessions in AmericJi in satisfaction of 
these claims, an^ tbereby facilitate the de- 
parture of the last foreign ppwer from this 
continent. 

WHITHER WE ARE TENDING. 

"We are coming into the realization, of a 
republican government, the grandeur and 



glory of which was in the contemplative 
minds of Jefferson and Madison, and had 
the same state of society existed at the end 
of their rebellion as existed at the end of 
ours, the inheiitance of it and its blessings 
from them would have been all that re- 
mained to us to do. But as it unfortu- 
nately was not the same, it has cost us 
more than half a million of lives of the 
flower of youth, intelligence, and energetic 
manhood, and a national debt and obliga- 
tions of nearly three thousand millions of 
dollars. To meet the accruing interest on 
this indebtedness, and the payment of pen- 
sions, and bounties, and the current ex- 
penses of the Government, whicb are large, 
requires millions of revenue, which is de- 
rived through taxes and tariffs. In view of 
these facts, is it not the part of wisdom and 
sound policy to aid in the settlement of the 
questions now in process of settlement, 
rather than put obstacles in the way? 
When this is done the military force in tho 
South can be with^lrawu, and employed in 
the protection of the great routes across 
the continent, and the settlement of our 
Indian troubles, and exploration of our yet 
unexplored mining regions, if their ser- 
vices should be required there, and if not, 
the army could be reduced to the standard 
necessary to these purposes. The Freed- 
mcn's Bureau would no Imuger be a drain 
U()on the national treasury; the civil rights 
bill would enforce itself. And Congress 
could give its uudivided attention to our 
financial policy, national economy, and 
development of our resources. 

Political economy would then become 
the study of our representatives to the pro- 
per discrimination of the articles to bo 
taxed, or on which duties are to be im- 
posed, tbat their burdens and benefits may 
be extended equally to all sections of the 
country, as well as to the best mode of 
their reduction. 

With a wise and economical administra- 
tion of public affiirs, and all the energies 
of this mighty people directed to the de- 
velopmeot, and making available of our 
unsurpassed mineral ami agricultural 
wealtb, may we not c^nfi leutly hope tho 
financial future of quv ccmntry will equal 
the desires of its most ardent friends ? 

OUR INFLUENCE UPON OTHER NATIONS. 

Our geograpbical position, the develop- 
ment ot our great military cdaracter and 
resources, and our leniency totue subdued, 
gipe us a power and ialliience among the 
nations none other ever hud. And, if we 
ure but true to the priuciples of our Christi- 
anity and republican goyernmen' — making 
honesty and virtue uucessiry p.iisports to 
private and public fetation, we may hope to 
see the "standard of our liepubiic sill high 
advanced, "and thea?gls ofourp!)vver spread 
over this contiiient protecting our sister re- 
publics— grown strong in virtueaud self-reli- 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



16 



anco. ill our example — from the influence 
and dangers of monarcbism. 

And if our experiment of manhood suf- 
frage to al), -witbout distinction of race, 
proves the success we believe it will, we 



013 785 658 fl 



may hope to see 
engrafted upon : 
of the world, and the inalienable n.u^liTs de- 
clared by our fathers, in Iheir Declaration 
of Independence, enjoyed by all mankind 



Chronicle Print, "Washington, D.O 



013 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 785 658 A 



pennulfP^* 



